The National Institutes of Health Toolbox is part of the NIH Blueprint initiative. It seeks to assemble brief, comprehensive assessment tools that will be useful in a variety of settings with a particular emphasis on measuring outcomes in epidemiologic studies and clinical trials across the lifespan.

Overview:

The ultimate goal is to help improve communication within and between fields of biomedical research and advance knowledge by using common data elements. The battery will examine various cognitive (episodic memory, language, processing speed, working memory, executive functions, attention), emotional (negative affect, positive affect, stress and coping, social relationships), sensory (vestibular, audition, olfaction, taste, vision) and motor functions (dexterity, strength, locomotion, endurance, balance).

Time:

The evaluation will take approximately 1–2 hours to complete.

Scoring:

The scoring varies by battery.

Psychometric Properties:

The battery has gone through extensive work to identify and pre-test the constructs to be measured. Validation is expected to be completed by the end of 2009 with subsequent norming planned on a very large sample.

Other Important Notes:

The battery is designed to measure these domains in ages 3 through 85.